A. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to refrigerators having an external ice and/or water dispenser, and more particularly, to a discharger for discharging or dissipating to ground potential any static electric charges that may be transferred to ice and water actuator levers forming a part of the refrigerator external ice and/or water dispenser.
B. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional refrigerator may include an external service area for dispensing ice and/or water from the inside of the refrigerator through the door of the refrigerator. U.S. Pat. No. 4,102,660, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, discloses a refrigerator with such an external service area. Many such refrigerators having an external service area also have sensing and display systems to monitor conditions within different areas of the refrigerator and to display information concerning those conditions. For example, information concerning the temperature within the different areas of the refrigerator may be visually indicated at a display area located on the door of the refrigerator adjacent to the external service area. These sensing and display systems may utilize a microprocessor and other electronic components. One such type of sensing,. and display system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,387,578.
In order to control the dispensing of such ice and/or water, actuator levers are pivotally mounted in the external service area. Upon depression of the appropriate lever, the lever is pivoted and water or ice is dispensed into a receptacle. In the above mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,102,660, these levers are shown to be supported by bearings permitting the levers to be pivoted, and thereby actuated, when a force is applied to the lever. In many refrigerators, some portions of the actuator levers are chrome plated. As a result, static electric charges that are generated from a person walking across a carpet or the like may be transferred to one of those levers when the lever is touched by the person or when the person comes sufficiently close to the lever that the built up static charge jumps the air gap between the person and the lever. Consequently, the static charge may be carried to the electronic components used in the refrigerator sensing and display system, damaging the components or erasing information stored in the memory of the microprocessor.